Is Microsoft ready to open? Can elephants dance?

In the face of mobile Internet, open and other topics, Microsoft seems to be forgotten. April 17, invited to visit Microsoft, feel some changes in Microsoft, but also feel the outside of Microsoft's layout does not understand, and even some misunderstanding.

Is Microsoft concerned about mobile Internet?

Although Microsoft buys Nokia, and vigorously pushes WP handset, but the performance still is not ideal. For the average person, Microsoft's impression of Windows is that Microsoft seems to be still a distance from the mobile internet. And in the 2 days of attendance, more than 10 participants in most of the consumer perspective of the evaluation of Microsoft, the process I also feel Microsoft Shenwey and other people's helplessness.

In fact, the new CEO, Barnard, has proposed the Microsoft's new strategy "move first, Cloud first", the vision is to let everyone in each terminal to use Microsoft's cloud services. Microsoft Shenwey also explains the layout of Microsoft's public cloud and private cloud. In fact, what we see is a big gap between Microsoft and real Microsoft. We all think games, social and other types of apps are mobile Internet, see the company is Google, Tencent, Facebook, WhatsApp.

In fact, in my opinion, these companies are just the tip of the iceberg of mobile internet ecosystems. Ma said the mobile Internet is the most ecosystem of the Internet, but also the most integrated with the real economy of the Internet. In fact, the mobile internet can connect everything, and the mobile internet boundary is no longer limited to the Internet itself, will expand to the broader traditional industries, any enterprise without access to mobile Internet will be unable to move.

And in the process of access to mobile Internet will inevitably use the "cloud", if we are all kinds of apps and traditional enterprises as the superstructure of the mobile Internet ecosystem, in fact, Microsoft to do is the foundation of the ecosystem. With the public cloud service, the cost of the underlying IT infrastructure is omitted for the enterprise, and the latest release of Azure and Office365, which is operated by the century Internet, is such a cloud service product.

So whether Microsoft is concerned about the problem of mobile Internet has a natural answer, Microsoft is only concerned about the level of our ordinary consumers are not concerned about the level of inconsistency, but also led to information asymmetry.

Is Microsoft ready to open? Can elephants dance?

During the two days of the conference, Microsoft received a fierce attack from more than 10 people. The focus of the attack is why Microsoft cannot change the mode of selling software, why not open and free? It also makes Microsoft's technical staff and PR executives feel helpless, and of course they try to explain Microsoft's open and free strategy in detail, but they don't seem to be buying it.

At the meeting, it seems that only I and a few people have not questioned the Microsoft's pricing strategy, after listening to Microsoft related people explain, I understand. Microsoft has now implemented a free policy on the WP system on mobile devices, while also making office free for pad use, but only readable, if you want to edit, still need to buy. While the software's free will still fall short of public expectations, Microsoft's free path has been opened, and the road is not going back.

Another opening is the opening of cloud services. On the question of whether Microsoft's public cloud is biased against Laas and PAAs, Microsoft has said that Microsoft can provide a full set of public cloud solutions from Laas\paas\saas to meet different customers ' deployment of their own cloud platforms, providing developers and users with an open environment.

So Microsoft has embarked on the open road, as the participants to Microsoft immediately stop the software charging mode, fully open, I also put forward a different view on the spot. A company that has easily changed its previous earnings model, meaning that it will reduce revenue directly, would be a big blow to partners and shareholders in a giant like Microsoft. Under the cover of how the eggs, Microsoft is an ecosystem-supported enterprises, he is strong is the partner on this platform to develop software, sales software, to obtain revenue, so immediately free completely impossible.

Another reason is that the ship is hard to turn. It's a common failing for any giant to transform, and I've had this thought, "it seems very difficult to ask the enterprise to revolutionize itself, to subvert the original product or profit model." Thus, it is always small companies and start-ups to the Giants subversion, and then replace the Giants to grow into the new giants, this should be the law of technology companies to reproduce, few companies can break the law. But as the internet age approaches, internet companies and traditional industries may have the ability to evolve themselves, quietly changing the profit model, and thus achieving new life. ”

Microsoft's revenues continue to grow in the first quarter of 2014, and software is still making huge profits. A friend said that every vested interest is like a bird with gold on its wings, and that the Microsoft ship is not the only one.

At the meeting, I talked about whether Microsoft is focused on consumer or user-level markets. Also talked about whether Google, Amazon, Apple will be from the consumer-level market quickly into the enterprise-level market to the formation of the subversion of Microsoft. But I saw that Microsoft did not give up the defense, but increased the defensive strength, that is Nadra proposed "move first, cloud first" strategy, and to increase the layout of azure, Office365, OFFICE365 launched 2 years has been 1.5 billion dollars in revenue, and I also saw data show that VMware's first-quarter net profit grew 15% per cent, and the scene of Microsoft's Mr Kyung-Ching was asked whether Microsoft's cloud computing could make a profit, and he certainly said it was already profitable.

So using Microsoft's strong technical power to preempt the cloud computing, it is believed that this strategy will also become the leader of Microsoft's transformation and the moat of Microsoft. By the time Microsoft's cloud services get revenue to make up for the economic losses of Office and Windows, perhaps Microsoft will take a free strategy, and Microsoft's legions of partners are already turning to cloud services sales, which is also a change in ecosystems.

No doubt, Microsoft this elephant is ready to dance, but with the blue giant IBM arm lose weight of the practice is completely different.